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Objective: Learn basic animation principles such as timing, spacing, arcs, anticipation, and squash and stretch.
What to do:
Find two balls of different weights -- the bigger the contrast in weight the better -- and bring them to class. You will be using these as reference. Plan each exercise on paper before beginning - this may feel like a waste of time, but this will help you finish faster, easier, and with better results. (Planning sheet examples found HERE and HERE) Make sure you animate at 30 frames per second and it usually helps to set playback to realtime. These settings can be found in your preferences under 'Settings' and 'Timeline'.
- Animate both balls in the same scene with no forward momentum. (only animating y-translation)
- pay attention to timing and spacing
- include squash and stretch
- Animate both balls in the same scene with forward momentum, and slow to a stop.
- make some way of showing rotation of the ball
- pay attention to arcs
- Animate a bird's translation using a motion path. Animate the translation based on the actions of the bird. (Bird found HERE)
- you will be attaching the rootControl (the ring around the feet) to the motion path
- try to minimize slipping of the feet
- Animate a ball with intent and emotion. Tell a story with a ball as the character. Every action the ball makes should have a reason and you should be able to see the ball thinking.
- Apply all the principles learned in the bouncing ball as well as anticipation.
Playblast all four animated clips and turn them in to the turn in folder, from the appropriate camera. Make sure you have read and followed all the directions.
Playblast directions:
- Playblasts are Maya's way of creating a preview of your animation that runs in real time, and is much faster to create than a render.
- Go to Window > Playblast > OptionBox. Change the option for Viewer to 'Movieplayer', change the Display size to "Custom" and enter 640 and 480 for the two values. Change the scale to "1.00", and check "Save to File" and name it appropriately.
- Playblast the two bouncing balls from an orthographic view. You can use any camera for the other two parts.
Tips:
- Plan - your planning sheet should have everything you will need to know. You should, in theory, be able to animate without ever referring back to your reference
- Use reference
- You generally shouldn't see squash and stretch when played at full speed, but you should be able to feel it.
- Plan
- Try not to spend too much time in the Graph Editor. Focus on what your animation looks like, not what the curves look like. Don't be afraid to add more keys or breakdowns.
Turn-in:
- Four playblasts as specified in the playblast directions. Do NOT turn in renders.
- Four .mb files
- Planning sheets
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